Magazine Aug-Oct 2020

FEATURE

MID-AUTUMN FESTIVAL October 1, 2020

Falling on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month, the Mid-Autumn Festival is celebrated in several East Asian and South East Asian cultures, including Singapore, as a time for families to gather and savor delicious mooncakes. Traditional mooncakes comprise a sweet paste made from lotus,red bean,sesame or yam,enclosed by a thin baked crust, with some containing additional premium ingredients such as salted egg yolk, pine nuts or macadamia nuts. However, as a nation of foodies, Singapore does not shy away from contemporary twists to our beloved festive treats. One popular variant, imbued with local flavor, is the durian snow skin mooncake, comprising a rich durian paste enclosed by a non-baked skin made using glutinous rice flour, not dissimilar to that of Japanese mochi cakes. Yet, the focus on family reunion is a relatively new concept, especially since the festival can be traced all the way back to the Song Dynasty (960 - 1279).This was a time where it was customary for Chinese people to worship the moon due to its associations with life-giving water and rainfall. Accordingly,

the celebrations took place in the middle of autumn, often coinciding with the night where the Moon appeared largest in the year. Knowing that it was the closest it could be in its orbit around Earth, people took the chance to give thanks to the Moon for granting them steady rainfall and a successful harvest of their summer-grown crops. Interestingly, the Mid-Autumn Festival’s central tenets also feature in Anglo-Western and European sensibilities of earlier times. Farmers welcomed evenings accompanied by the Harvest Moon -- the full moon that occurred closest to the autumnal equinox. During these evenings, sunset was followed swiftly by the moonrise, and the abundance of bright moonlight enabled farmers to harvest their crops beyond the limits of traditional daylight. Today, in modern Singapore, the Mid-Autumn Festival is a night of fun and reunion. Kids carry their lanterns around the neighborhood, play with candles and admire the moon, while the adults sip freshly-brewed tea and sample a selection of mooncakes. Commemorate this traditional Chinese festival with a box of The Club’s exquisite mooncakes, available for sale at Central.

25 THE AMERICAN CLUB SINGAPORE